


who knows what truth is, how do you prove it

by tommyshepherdd (atimeforflores)



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Gen, XMA spoilers, sibling relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 19:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7401409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atimeforflores/pseuds/tommyshepherdd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is one universe. There are two Alex Summers. Their stories start the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	who knows what truth is, how do you prove it

There is one universe. There are two Alex Summers. Their stories start the same.

It’s the ache in his chest, the annoyance of Scott continuously tackling him when he just wants to sleep, his father’s voice yelling at him to be gentler with his brother, Gabe crying and chewing on their mother’s hair. It’s the frustration that he feels building up, the way it’s getting hard to breathe, the way he wants everything to just stop, just for a moment. 

Then it’s just silence, before he hears his mother crying, hears his father’s groans of pain. Feels Scott safely in his own arms, the young boy shaking and crying. Gabe is quiet. Gabe is gone. Their mother soon stops crying, and their father stops groaning. Scott does not stop crying and Alex joins him. They struggle through the woods, when they finally think they can. Scott’s tiny fists are clutching Alex’s shirt. Alex walks until he feels like his feet will fall off, until he has to carry Scott because the child passed out from exhaustion. Only Scott’s tiny breaths on his neck is what keeps him moving. 

Eventually Alex finds a road, finds someone who calls an ambulance. By the time they get to the hospital, Scott is awake again. He’s clinging to Alex, refusing to be taken to another room, another floor. Alex doesn’t have the heart to make the boy go. The news that their parents are dead isn’t a surprise to Alex. He knew that the entire walk, spinning little white lies so that Scott would be calm. They weren’t leaving mom and dad and Gabe, he promised, they were going to get help. They were going to be heroes. The police never did tell him what happened to Gabe.

Alex requests that he and Scott be separated, when the social workers come for them. They have no living family, and Alex already knows no one will take him. Scott, however, is a cute kid. He could make it. He’ll forget Alex, soon enough.

Alex is transferred to a home. Not a good one, not an outrageously bad one. Just a home. No one really pays attention to him, and he prefers it that way. Alex turns 16, he knows that Scott turns 6. Scott calls his new parents mom and dad. They told him that he stopped asking for him. Alex tells them it’s better that way and then cries himself to sleep.

He moves from house to house. He gets angry, he gets sad. His story is just another one of tragedy. Everyone had them. Some father figures are more heavy handed than others. Some mothers are more involved than others. He’s going to age out soon, having nowhere to go. 

And then, his powers manifest. His chest had been tight ever since the plane crash, and he could never really breathe. The kids at school know that he doesn’t really need a reason to fight. Just a trip, just a push and it sets him off. One more fight and he’s expelled.

So they push him. It’s like something is ripped out of him, his anger, and grief, and everything he had kept firmly closed suddenly overflowed. He doesn’t remember any of it, waking up ashes and burning flesh. He’s arrested. He’s sentenced. He rots.

He doesn’t know how to control his power, nor his anger. He requests solitary, and when that doesn’t work, he makes sure he gets it. 

Scott is 8. He knows how to read, how to multiply. He has two imaginary friends, one named Gabe and one named Alex. Scott’s parents stop inviting him over, not that he could leave the prison. 

Alex, both Alexes, were totally and utterly alone.

And then the two men show up. A reprieve. They get him out of the prison, show him how to be a person again. Not a weapon. Just Alex.

He laughs with Darwin, he wrestles with Sean, he laughs at Hank, he listens to Erik, he looks up to Charles, he argues with Raven.

Then they’re attacked. He kills Darwin. Angel leaves. Everything falls apart.

They fracture even more in Cuba. Soon enough, it’s just Alex, Hank, and Charles. The silence is stifling and Alex can feel himself suffocating. He’s almost glad to find the draft in the mail. It gives him something to do. It gives him purpose.

The day before he is supposed to be shipped out, he leaves the camp. His superiors punish him for it, but he doesn’t care.

He saw Scott, again, probably for the last time. He was 10, and tall for his age, also a little on the thin side. He liked to play soccer, and his favorite food was grapes. Scott’s parents eyed Alex warily, not letting Alex actually talk to him. It was okay, though, Alex told them, wiping at his eyes. It was better that way.

He leaves then, before Scott can actually see him. He gives Scott’s parents a letter, tells them to give it to Scott, for later, for when Alex is gone for good. 

He hopes they kept it.

War is hell. There was no way around it. People died, constantly. Alex was almost one of them a few times. He almost wishes he was one of them. Scott is always on the forefront of his mind. The money he’s making is being sent to an account for Scott to go to school, the one thing Alex and Scott’s parents did agree on. The only time it wouldn’t be transferred to Scott is if it was needed to cover Alex’s funeral expenses.

Alex knows he’s going to die. He can feel it in his bones. He feels old, though he knows he is not. He feels ready, even though he knows he shouldn’t be. Mystique comes when Scott is 15. It’s been so long since Alex had been okay.

She sends him home.

This is where the universe splits. Ghosts spin tales of both Alexes.

In one half of the universe, mutants are revealed. It gives only one Alex an opening, a reason to go back to Scott. Scott is 16, and Alex is 26. It has been six years. That Scott bursts in tears, telling his older brother that he never forgot him, that he never could. When that Scott’s powers develop, Alex is there to lead him to Xavier’s. That Alex tells him brother about red haired boys who could fly, about girls with wings, and blue skinned heroes.

In the other half of the universe, mutants are still a secret. Alex lives in shame, working jobs that pay less than minimum wage. When Stryker comes for him, he doesn’t fight. He walks with his head down, letting the man take him to his death. Finally.

In one end of the universe, Scott watches as his brother dies. In the other he misses it completely. 

Scott is thirty years old when he finds the letter from Alex, when he’s cleaning out the attic of his parent’s house. He shouts at them, asking why they never told him. He cries, unbelieving that his brother was just another unnamed soldier who died in the war. 

All together, the universe is unfair to the Summers brothers. 

There is one universe. There are two Alex Summers. Their stories end the same.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been feeling like I needed to write angst lately, so here it is!
> 
> follow me on Tumblr @gaysupersoldiers


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